i wake up in the morning with fiscal cliff reverberating in my brain and i can see politicians playing the very game that you alluded to there on jay leno and it is a game for them but for other people, it's a very real thing. and the economy at the moment is completely stagnant waiting for something to happen. you've been in a position of very negative government shutdown with president clinton and a very positive, where you and he in the second term got together, got stuff done and as you saw, a surplus in the economy. so you know what the reality of these debates are like and what it's likely to be going on behind closed doors. what is the way through this and how is this likely, in your expert opinion, to be resolved? >> first of all, i think it took the very tough two closings of the federal government, one for six days, the other for 21 days, in order to get to a point where we were able to negotiate seriously to get welfare reform which was vetoed twice and then signed, and then to get four consecutive balanced budgets which was a pretty substantial accomplishment. the only time